Enhancement of massive data ingestion by similarity linkage of documents

ABSTRACT

A method for ingesting a plurality of content according to a statistical similarity of at least one portion of the ingested plurality of content into an information handling system capable of answering questions, whereby the ingested plurality of content is based on a received topic and ingesting the plurality of content comprises ingesting a plurality of documents associated with the received topic is provided. The method may include determining at least one similarity between each document based on a similarity criteria. The method may also include applying a statistical model to characterize the determined at least one similarity between each document. The method may further include creating at least one pair-wise link for each document. The method may additionally include mapping the created at least one pair-wise link. The method may include generating a plurality of rules for ingesting a plurality of additional content.

BACKGROUND

The present invention relates generally to the field of computers, andmore particularly to question and answer systems.

In an unstructured information system, the information sources containvarious domains and subdomains of information. The grouping andprocessing of domains of information enable a precise and domainspecific model for question and answer systems. A question and answersystem is a system related to the fields of information retrieval andnatural language processing (NLP), which is concerned with buildingsystems that automatically answer questions posed by humans in a naturallanguage. In order to generate the corpus of documents for the variousdomains, the users must generate rules in order to improve theperformance and accuracy of the question and answer system.

SUMMARY

According to one embodiment, a method for ingesting a plurality ofcontent according to a statistical similarity of at least one portion ofthe ingested plurality of content into an information handling systemcapable of answering questions, whereby the ingested plurality ofcontent is based on a received topic and ingesting the plurality ofcontent comprises ingesting a plurality of documents associated with thereceived topic is provided. The method may include determining at leastone similarity between each document within the ingested plurality ofdocuments based on a similarity criteria. The method may additionallyinclude applying a statistical model to characterize the determined atleast one similarity between each document within the ingested pluralityof documents. The method may include creating at least one pair-wiselink between a word, an image, or a plurality of other media for eachdocument within the ingested plurality of documents based on the appliedstatistical model. The method may also include mapping the created atleast one pair-wise link for a first document within the ingestedplurality of documents to at least one other document within theingested plurality of documents based on a context of the word, theimage, or the plurality of other media. The method may includegenerating a plurality of rules for ingesting a plurality of additionalcontent based on the mapping of the created at least one pair-wise link.

According to another embodiment, a computer system for ingesting aplurality of content according to a statistical similarity of at leastone portion of the ingested plurality of content into an informationhandling system capable of answering questions, whereby the ingestedplurality of content is based on a received topic and ingesting theplurality of content comprises ingesting a plurality of documentsassociated with the received topic is provided. The computer system mayinclude one or more processors, one or more computer-readable memories,one or more computer-readable tangible storage devices, and programinstructions stored on at least one of the one or more storage devicesfor execution by at least one of the one or more processors via at leastone of the one or more memories, whereby the computer system is capableof performing a method. The method may include receiving a topic foringesting the content. The method may also include ingesting a pluralityof documents associated with the topic. The method may further includedetermining at least one similarity between each document within theingested plurality of documents based on a similarity criteria. Themethod may additionally include applying a statistical model tocharacterize the determined at least one similarity between eachdocument within the ingested plurality of documents. The method mayinclude creating at least one pair-wise link between a word, an image,or a plurality of other media for each document within the ingestedplurality of documents based on the applied statistical model. Themethod may also include mapping the created at least one pair-wise linkfor a first document within the ingested plurality of documents to atleast one other document within the ingested plurality of documentsbased on a context of the word, the image, or the plurality of othermedia. The method may include generating a plurality of rules foringesting a plurality of additional content based on the mapping of thecreated at least one pair-wise link.

According to yet another embodiment, a computer program product foringesting a plurality of content according to a statistical similarityof at least one portion of the ingested plurality of content into aninformation handling system capable of answering questions, whereby theingested plurality of content is based on a received topic and ingestingthe plurality of content comprises ingesting a plurality of documentsassociated with the received topic is provided. The computer programproduct may include one or more computer-readable storage devices andprogram instructions stored on at least one of the one or me tangiblestorage devices, the program instructions executable by a processor. Thecomputer program product may include program instructions to receive atopic for ingesting the content. The computer program product may alsoinclude program instructions to ingest a plurality of documentsassociated with the topic. The computer program product may furtherinclude program instructions to determine at least one similaritybetween each document within the ingested plurality of documents basedon a similarity criteria. The computer program product may additionallyinclude program instructions to apply a statistical model tocharacterize the determined at least one similarity between eachdocument within the ingested plurality of documents. The computerprogram product may include program instructions to create at least onepair-wise link between a word, an image, or a plurality of other mediafor each document within the ingested plurality of documents based onthe applied statistical model. The computer program product may alsoinclude program instructions to map the created at least one pair-wiselink for a first document within the ingested plurality of documents toat least one other document within the ingested plurality of documentsbased on a context of the word, the image, or the plurality of othermedia. The computer program product may include program instructions togenerate a plurality of rules for ingesting a plurality of additionalcontent based on the mapping of the created at least one pair-wise link.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWINGS

These and other objects, features and advantages of the presentinvention will become apparent from the following detailed descriptionof illustrative embodiments thereof, which is to be read in connectionwith the accompanying drawings. The various features of the drawings arenot to scale as the illustrations are for clarity in facilitating oneskilled in the art in understanding the invention in conjunction withthe detailed description. In the drawings:

FIG. 1 illustrates a networked computer environment according to oneembodiment;

FIG. 2 is an operational flowchart illustrating the steps carried out bya program for enhancement of massive data ingestion by similaritylinkage of documents according to at least one embodiment;

FIG. 3 is an exemplary illustration of a generated model of documentsaccording to at least one embodiment;

FIG. 4 is an exemplary illustration of loading documents according to atleast one embodiment;

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of internal and external components ofcomputers and servers depicted in FIG. 1 according to at least oneembodiment;

FIG. 6 is a block diagram of an illustrative cloud computing environmentincluding the computer system depicted in FIG. 1, in accordance with anembodiment of the present disclosure; and

FIG. 7 is a block diagram of functional layers of the illustrative cloudcomputing environment of FIG. 6, in accordance with an embodiment of thepresent disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Detailed embodiments of the claimed structures and methods are disclosedherein; however, it can be understood that the disclosed embodiments aremerely illustrative of the claimed structures and methods that may beembodied in various forms. This invention may, however, be embodied inmany different forms and should not be construed as limited to theexemplary embodiments set forth herein. Rather, these exemplaryembodiments are provided so that this disclosure will be thorough andcomplete and will fully convey the scope of this invention to thoseskilled in the art. In the description, details of well-known featuresand techniques may be omitted to avoid unnecessarily obscuring thepresented embodiments.

Embodiments of the present invention relate generally to the field ofcomputers, and more particularly to question and answer systems. Thefollowing described exemplary embodiments provide a system, method andprogram product to, among other things, enhance massive data ingestionby similarity linkage of documents. Therefore, the present embodimenthas the capacity to improve the technical field of question and answersystems by providing a way to improve rule generation from unstructureddocument linkages. More specifically, the present embodiment may improvedocument loading or ingestion for a question and answer system bydetermining the similarity of passages through the linkages between thedocuments, in order to improve performance and accuracy without the needof a user to generate rules. Additionally, advantages of the presentembodiment may include the ability to augment existing search rankingsor search context by providing an efficient question and answer (QnA)system.

As previously described, with respect to an unstructured informationsystem, the information sources contain various domains and subdomainsof information. The grouping and processing of domains of informationenable a precise and domain specific model for question and answersystems. In order to generate the corpus of documents for the variousdomains, the users must generate rules in order to improve theperformance and accuracy of the question and answer system. However, aswith any handcrafted system, the system may become fragile andinflexible and expensive to maintain. Additionally, such systems oftenlack refinement features. As such, it may be advantageous, among otherthings, to provide a system that improves rule generation fromunstructured document linkages.

According to at least one implementation, the present embodiment maylink documents based on similarity in portions of content by utilizing astatistical model for enhancement of massive data ingestion. Therefore,the present embodiment may apply a statistical model to generate rulesand characterize similarity criteria such as a threshold, betweenportions of series of documents for ingesting additional content. Assuch, the present embodiment may ingest content from a first series ofdocuments based on a topic (e.g. question) and thereafter, determiningand applying the statistical model (variance, bias, mean, andstandard-deviation) to characterize similarity criteria between portionsof a series of documents. Additionally, the present embodiment maygenerate and utilize rules for ingesting additional content and generatelinkages based on the statistical model and similarity criteria. Thelinkages may be hyperlinks between entries based on the similaritycriteria such as, a threshold (e.g. context, number of times repeated,confidence, location, and author).

The present invention may be a system, a method, and/or a computerprogram product. The computer program product may include a computerreadable storage medium (or media) having computer readable programinstructions thereon for causing a processor to carry out aspects of thepresent invention.

The computer readable storage medium can be a tangible device that canretain and store instructions for use by an instruction executiondevice. The computer readable storage medium may be, for example, but isnot limited to, an electronic storage device, a magnetic storage device,an optical storage device, an electromagnetic storage device, asemiconductor storage device, or any suitable combination of theforegoing. A non-exhaustive list of more specific examples of thecomputer readable storage medium includes the following: a portablecomputer diskette, a hard disk, a random access memory (RAM), aread-only memory (ROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROMor Flash memory), a static random access memory (SRAM), a portablecompact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM), a digital versatile disk (DVD),a memory stick, a floppy disk, a mechanically encoded device such aspunch-cards or raised structures in a groove having instructionsrecorded thereon, and any suitable combination of the foregoing. Acomputer readable storage medium, as used herein, is not to be construedas being transitory signals per se, such as radio waves or other freelypropagating electromagnetic waves, electromagnetic waves propagatingthrough a waveguide or other transmission media (e.g., light pulsespassing through a fiber-optic cable), or electrical signals transmittedthrough a wire.

Computer readable program instructions described herein can bedownloaded to respective computing/processing devices from a computerreadable storage medium or to an external computer or external storagedevice via a network, for example, the Internet, a local area network, awide area network and/or a wireless network. The network may comprisecopper transmission cables, optical transmission fibers, wirelesstransmission, routers, firewalls, switches, gateway computers and/oredge servers. A network adapter card or network interface in eachcomputing/processing device receives computer readable programinstructions from the network and forwards the computer readable programinstructions for storage in a computer readable storage medium withinthe respective computing/processing device.

Computer readable program instructions for carrying out operations ofthe present invention may be assembler instructions,instruction-set-architecture (ISA) instructions, machine instructions,machine dependent instructions, microcode, firmware instructions,state-setting data, or either source code or object code written in anycombination of one or more programming languages, including an objectoriented programming language such as Smalltalk, C++ or the like, andconventional procedural programming languages, such as the “C”programming language or similar programming languages. The computerreadable program instructions may execute entirely on the user'scomputer, partly on the user's computer, as a stand-alone softwarepackage, partly on the user's computer and partly on a remote computeror entirely on the remote computer or server. In the latter scenario,the remote computer may be connected to the user's computer through anytype of network, including a local area network (LAN) or a wide areanetwork (WAN), or the connection may be made to an external computer(for example, through the Internet using an Internet Service Provider).In some embodiments, electronic circuitry including, for example,programmable logic circuitry, field-programmable gate arrays (FPGA), orprogrammable logic arrays (PLA) may execute the computer readableprogram instructions by utilizing state information of the computerreadable program instructions to personalize the electronic circuitry,in order to perform aspects of the present invention.

Aspects of the present invention are described herein with reference toflowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams of methods, apparatus(systems), and computer program products according to embodiments of theinvention. It will be understood that each block of the flowchartillustrations and/or block diagrams, and combinations of blocks in theflowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, can be implemented bycomputer readable program instructions.

These computer readable program instructions may be provided to aprocessor of a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, orother programmable data processing apparatus to produce a machine, suchthat the instructions, which execute via the processor of the computeror other programmable data processing apparatus, create means forimplementing the functions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or blockdiagram block or blocks. These computer readable program instructionsmay also be stored in a computer readable storage medium that can directa computer, a programmable data processing apparatus, and/or otherdevices to function in a particular manner, such that the computerreadable storage medium having instructions stored therein comprises anarticle of manufacture including instructions which implement aspects ofthe function/act specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram blockor blocks.

The computer readable program instructions may also be loaded onto acomputer, other programmable data processing apparatus, or other deviceto cause a series of operational steps to be performed on the computer,other programmable apparatus or other device to produce a computerimplemented process, such that the instructions which execute on thecomputer, other programmable apparatus, or other device implement thefunctions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block orblocks.

The flowchart and block diagrams in the Figures illustrate thearchitecture, functionality, and operation of possible implementationsof systems, methods, and computer program products according to variousembodiments of the present invention. In this regard, each block in theflowchart or block diagrams may represent a module, segment, or portionof instructions, which comprises one or more executable instructions forimplementing the specified logical function(s). In some alternativeimplementations, the functions noted in the block may occur out of theorder noted in the figures. For example, two blocks shown in successionmay, in fact, be executed substantially concurrently, or the blocks maysometimes be executed in the reverse order, depending upon thefunctionality involved. It will also be noted that each block of theblock diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, and combinations of blocksin the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, can be implementedby special purpose hardware-based systems that perform the specifiedfunctions or acts or carry out combinations of special purpose hardwareand computer instructions.

The following described exemplary embodiments provide a system, methodand program product to develop a linkage model that enables theautomatic loading of similar documents. As such, the present embodimentmay determine linkage or references between documents (similarity beingone method), and based on the linkage, may load similar documents basedon prior groupings.

According to at least one implementation, a user may pose a questionregarding an issue with a product. Then, the present embodiment mayacquire documents, both structured and unstructured in format based on atopic associated with the posed question. Next, the present embodimentmay ingest an initial list of documents based on the question anddetermine the similarity of the documents to one another. Then, apair-wise link may be created between each word, image or other mediawithin the document so that the link may then be mapped to otherdocuments based on the context of the words. Parameters may be generatedfor a number of granular pair-wise linkage between the document(s) andthe method may then create a cluster of absolute valued linkages usingvarious statistical methods such as: Variance, Bias, Mean,Standard-Deviation, etc. The method may also group linkages based onranking (high, med, low) so as to filter out outliers, or other unwantedlinkages. Additionally, rules may be defined based on the pair-wiselinkages and the present embodiment may store the rules or refine therules as more documents are loaded into the system. As such, the presentembodiment may use the rules to more efficiently load the documents andthe rules may be used as more documents are loaded.

Referring to FIG. 1, an exemplary networked computer environment 100 inaccordance with one embodiment is depicted. The networked computerenvironment 100 may include a computer 102 with a processor 104 and adata storage device 106 that is enabled to run a software program 108and an Enhancement of Massive Data Ingestion by Similarity Linkage ofDocuments program 116A. The networked computer environment 100 may alsoinclude a server 114 that is enabled to run an Enhancement of MassiveData Ingestion by Similarity Linkage of Documents program 116B that mayinteract with a database 112 and a communication network 110. Thenetworked computer environment 100 may include a plurality of computer102 and servers 114, only one of which is shown. The communicationnetwork may include various types of communication networks, such as awide area network (WAN), local area network (LAN), a telecommunicationnetwork, a wireless network, a public switched network and/or asatellite network. It should be appreciated that FIG. 1 provides only anillustration of one implementation and does not imply any limitationswith regard to the environments in which different embodiments may beimplemented. Many modifications to the depicted environments may be madebased on design and implementation requirements.

The client computer 102 may communicate with the Enhancement of MassiveData Ingestion by Similarity Linkage of Documents program 116B runningon server computer 114 via the communications network 110. Thecommunications network 110 may include connections, such as wire,wireless communication links, or fiber optic cables. As will bediscussed with reference to FIG. 5, server computer 114 may includeinternal components 800 a and external components 900 a, respectively,and client computer 102 may include internal components 800 b andexternal components 900 b, respectively. Client computer 102 may be, forexample, a mobile device, a telephone, a personal digital assistant, anetbook, a laptop computer, a tablet computer, a desktop computer, orany type of computing devices capable of running a program, accessing anetwork, and accessing a database 112. According to variousimplementations of the present embodiment, the Enhancement of MassiveData Ingestion by Similarity Linkage of Documents program 116A, 116B mayinteract with a database 112 that may be embedded in various storagedevices, such as, but not limited to a computer/mobile device 102, anetworked server 114, or a cloud storage service.

As previously described, the client computer 102 may access theEnhancement of Massive Data Ingestion by Similarity Linkage of Documentsprogram 116B, running on server computer 114 via the communicationsnetwork 110. For example, a user using a client computer 102 may use theEnhancement of Massive Data Ingestion by Similarity Linkage of Documentsprogram 116A, 116B to improve document loading or ingestion for aquestion and answer system by determining the similarity of passagesthrough the linkages between the documents in order to improveperformance and accuracy without the need of the user to generate rules.The Enhancement of Massive Data Ingestion by Similarity Linkage ofdocuments method is explained in more detail below with respect to FIGS.2-4.

Referring now to FIG. 2, an operational flowchart 200 illustrating thesteps carried out by a program for the enhancement of massive dataingestion by similarity linkage of documents according to at least oneembodiment is depicted. As previously described, the Enhancement ofMassive Data Ingestion by Similarity Linkage of Documents program 116A,116B (FIG. 1) may improve document loading or ingestion for a questionand answer system by determining the similarity of passages through thelinkages between the documents in order to improve performance andaccuracy without the need of a user to generate rules.

Therefore with respect to FIG. 2 at 202, a user poses a questionregarding an issue with a product. For example, a customer may have aproblem upgrading a software application product from the older versionto the most recent version (e.g., WebSphere Portal v7 to v8).

Then at 204, the Enhancement of Massive Data Ingestion by SimilarityLinkage of Documents program 116A, 116B (FIG. 1) acquires documents(unstructured/structured) based on the topic of the posed question. Forexample, the Enhancement of Massive Data Ingestion by Similarity Linkageof Documents program 116A, 116B (FIG. 1) may acquire documents fromvarious sources including, but on limited to the Internet or arepository, such as a database 112 (FIG. 1). The documents may even bemanually loaded into a system by a user.

Next at 206, the Enhancement of Massive Data Ingestion by SimilarityLinkage of Documents program 116A, 116B (FIG. 1) ingests an initial listof documents based on the question. For example, the Enhancement ofMassive Data Ingestion by Similarity Linkage of Documents program 116A,116B (FIG. 1) may ingest documents (1-5) 302-310 in FIG. 3 describedbelow.

Then at 208, the Enhancement of Massive Data Ingestion by SimilarityLinkage of Documents program 116A, 116B (FIG. 1) determines thesimilarity of the documents to one another. According to the presentembodiment, this determination may be implementation as either a 1-1relationship or a 1-many. However, for example purposes only, FIG. 3below illustrates a 1-1 for simplicity.

Next at 210, the Enhancement of Massive Data Ingestion by SimilarityLinkage of Documents program 116A, 116B (FIG. 1) creates a pair-wiselink between each word, image, or other media within the document. Assuch, using hypertext to disseminate the contents of the documents, apair-wise link may be created between each word, image or other mediawithin the document. Then at 212, the link is mapped to other documentsbased on context of the words. According to at least one implementation,these links can be determined using existing techniques such as NLP andother text mining techniques.

Next at 214, the Enhancement of Massive Data Ingestion by SimilarityLinkage of Documents program 116A, 116B (FIG. 1) will generateparameters for a number of granular pair-wise linkages between thedocument(s). For example, possible linkages may include:

-   -   a) Percentage similarity of section (or subsection) of a        document to 1 or more other documents;    -   b) Number of times the similarity is repeated in each document;    -   c) The location and context of the similarity; and    -   d) Confidence level of similarity (ex: is the author a subject        matter expert (SME) of content.

The pairwise linkage may be directed or undirected based on the use ofdates to link documents together. For example, direct Document A(created in May 2001) to come before Document B (created in June 2013).

Then at 216, the Enhancement of Massive Data Ingestion by SimilarityLinkage of Documents program 116A, 116B (FIG. 1) will create a clusterof absolute valued linkages using various statistical methods such as,variance, bias, mean, standard-deviation, etc.

Next at 218, the Enhancement of Massive Data Ingestion by SimilarityLinkage of Documents program 116A, 116B (FIG. 1) may group linkagesbased on ranking (high, med, low) so as to filter out outliers, or otherunwanted linkages.

Then at 220, the Enhancement of Massive Data Ingestion by SimilarityLinkage of Documents program 116A, 116B (FIG. 1) may then define rulesbased on the pair-wise linkages. For example, a rule may be defined forthe link with the top 25%. Additionally, the Enhancement of Massive DataIngestion by Similarity Linkage of Documents program 116A, 116B (FIG. 1)may answer the inverse, which are not the most irrelevant of a topic.

Next at 222, the Enhancement of Massive Data Ingestion by SimilarityLinkage of Documents program 116A, 116B (FIG. 1) may store rules orrefine the rules as more documents are loaded into the system. The rulesmay be stored in a repository, such as a database 112 (FIG. 1).

Then at 224, the Enhancement of Massive Data Ingestion by SimilarityLinkage of Documents program 116A, 116B (FIG. 1) may use the storedrules to more efficiently load the documents. As such, the stored rulesmay be used as more documents are loaded. For example, if Document (1)302 (FIG. 3) is found to be very similar to Document (4) 308 (FIG. 3),then the Enhancement of Massive Data Ingestion by Similarity Linkage ofDocuments program 116A, 116B (FIG. 1) may load Document (1) 302 (FIG. 3)in a similar plan to Document (4) 308 FIG. 3). The present embodimentmay sort the documents to load the most similar documents together. Forexample, if Document (1) 302 (FIG. 4) is loaded with Document (3) 306(FIG. 4), Document (5) 310 (FIG. 4), and Document (2) 304 (FIG. 4), anadvantage would be that the relevant documents are then available fasterif needed since they are loaded together.

It may be appreciated that FIG. 2 provides only an illustration of oneimplementation and does not imply any limitations with regard to howdifferent embodiments may be implemented. Many modifications to thedepicted environments may be made based on design and implementationrequirements. For example, the Enhancement of Massive Data Ingestion bySimilarity Linkage of Documents program 116A, 116B (FIG. 1) maysummarize links as a single annotation between the documents.Additionally, the Enhancement of Massive Data Ingestion by SimilarityLinkage of Documents program 116A, 116B (FIG. 1) may have hard and softlinks between documents. As such, the soft links may fall below acertain threshold and the hard links may be above a certain threshold(or 100%). Furthermore, various implementations of the presentembodiment may develop a model which optimizes massive data ingestionand may add negation links for highly un-correlated documents. Thepresent embodiment may generate models at a higher order than a singleword or group, and may be NGrams (a contiguous sequence of n items froma given sequence of text or speech, a sentence, a paragraph or a page).Also, the present embodiment may load the document—in the local view, oron hadoop nodes (a set of algorithms for distributed storage anddistributed processing of very large data sets), or in clusters based onsimilarity.

Referring now to FIG. 3, an exemplary illustration 300 of a generatedmodel of documents in accordance with one embodiment is depicted. Forexample, the present embodiment may generate a model 300 based on anexisting set of documents 302-310 using the method steps previouslydescribed with respect to FIG. 2. As such, with respect to FIG. 3, theparameters in may be defined as follows:

Parameter 1: Number of paragraphs 312 with the/percent similarity 314Parameter 2: Number of times there was a reference back to linkeddocument 316Parameter 3: Confidence level of author with respect to content 318Parameter 4: Age difference between linked documents 320

Then, based on the generated model 300, particular documents 302-310 maybe loaded accordingly as depicted with respect to FIG. 4.

Referring now to FIG. 4, an exemplary illustration 400 loading documentsin accordance with one embodiment is depicted. Based on the generatedmodel 300 described with respect to FIG. 3, the present embodiment (asdescribed with respect to the method 200 outlined in FIG. 2) may loaddocument (1) 302, and based on the generated model 300 (FIG. 3), mayalso know to load document (2) 304, document (3) 306, and document (5)310, but not document (4) 308 (FIG. 3). According to at least oneimplementation, the present embodiment may use pairwise linkages toindicate an absence of similarity between documents. For example,regarding Document (3) 306 to Document (5) 310 there is an absence oflinkage between the two, as it falls below a threshold.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram 500 of internal and external components ofcomputers depicted in FIG. 1 in accordance with an illustrativeembodiment of the present invention. It should be appreciated that FIG.5 provides only an illustration of one implementation and does not implyany limitations with regard to the environments in which differentembodiments may be implemented. Many modifications to the depictedenvironments may be made based on design and implementationrequirements.

Data processing system 800, 900 is representative of any electronicdevice capable of executing machine-readable program instructions. Dataprocessing system 800, 900 may be representative of a smart phone, acomputer system, PDA, or other electronic devices. Examples of computingsystems, environments, and/or configurations that may represented bydata processing system 800, 900 include, but are not limited to,personal computer systems, server computer systems, thin clients, thickclients, hand-held or laptop devices, multiprocessor systems,microprocessor-based systems, network PCs, minicomputer systems, anddistributed cloud computing environments that include any of the abovesystems or devices.

User client computer 102 (FIG. 1) and network server 114 (FIG. 1) mayinclude respective sets of internal components 800 a,b and externalcomponents 900 a,b illustrated in FIG. 5. Each of the sets of internalcomponents 800 include one or more processors 820, one or morecomputer-readable RAMs 822 and one or more computer-readable ROMs 824 onone or more buses 826, and one or more operating systems 828 and one ormore computer-readable tangible storage devices 830. The one or moreoperating systems 828 and the Software Program 108 (FIG. 1) and theEnhancement of Massive Data Ingestion by Similarity Linkage of Documentsprogram 116A (FIG. 1) in client computer 102 (FIG. 1) and theEnhancement of Massive Data Ingestion by Similarity Linkage of Documentsprogram 116B (FIG. 1) in network server 114 (FIG. 1) are stored on oneor more of the respective computer-readable tangible storage devices 830for execution by one or more of the respective processors 820 via one ormore of the respective RAMs 822 (which typically include cache memory).In the embodiment illustrated in FIG. 5, each of the computer-readabletangible storage devices 830 is a magnetic disk storage device of aninternal hard drive. Alternatively, each of the computer-readabletangible storage devices 830 is a semiconductor storage device such asROM 824, EPROM, flash memory or any other computer-readable tangiblestorage device that can store a computer program and digitalinformation.

Each set of internal components 800 a,b also includes a R/W drive orinterface 832 to read from and write to one or more portablecomputer-readable tangible storage devices 936 such as a CD-ROM, DVD,memory stick, magnetic tape, magnetic disk, optical disk orsemiconductor storage device. A software program, such as the SoftwareProgram 108 (FIG. 1) and the Enhancement of Massive Data Ingestion bySimilarity Linkage of Documents program 116A, 116B (FIG. 1) can bestored on one or more of the respective portable computer-readabletangible storage devices 936, read via the respective R/W drive orinterface 832 and loaded into the respective hard drive 830.

Each set of internal components 800 a,b also includes network adaptersor interfaces 836 such as a TCP/IP adapter cards, wireless Wi-Fiinterface cards, or 3G or 4G wireless interface cards or other wired orwireless communication links. The Software Program 108 (FIG. 1) and theEnhancement of Massive Data Ingestion by Similarity Linkage of Documentsprogram 116A (FIG. 1) in client computer 102 (FIG. 1) and theEnhancement of Massive Data Ingestion by Similarity Linkage of Documentsprogram 116B (FIG. 1) in network server 114 (FIG. 1) can be downloadedto client computer 102 (FIG. 1) and network server 114 (FIG. 1) from anexternal computer via a network (for example, the Internet, a local areanetwork or other, wide area network) and respective network adapters orinterfaces 836. From the network adapters or interfaces 836, theSoftware Program 108 (FIG. 1) and the Enhancement of Massive DataIngestion by Similarity Linkage of Documents program 116A (FIG. 1) inclient computer 102 (FIG. 1) and the Enhancement of Massive DataIngestion by Similarity Linkage of Documents program 116B (FIG. 1) innetwork server 114 (FIG. 1) are loaded into the respective hard drive830. The network may comprise copper wires, optical fibers, wirelesstransmission, routers, firewalls, switches, gateway computers and/oredge servers.

Each of the sets of external components 900 a,b can include a computerdisplay monitor 920, a keyboard 930, and a computer mouse 934. Externalcomponents 900 a,b can also include touch screens, virtual keyboards,touch pads, pointing devices, and other human interface devices. Each ofthe sets of internal components 800 a,b also includes device drivers 840to interface to computer display monitor 920, keyboard 930 and computermouse 934. The device drivers 840, R/W drive or interface 832 andnetwork adapter or interface 836 comprise hardware and software (storedin storage device 830 and/or ROM 824).

It is understood in advance that although this disclosure includes adetailed description on cloud computing, implementation of the teachingsrecited herein are not limited to a cloud computing environment. Rather,embodiments of the present invention are capable of being implemented inconjunction with any other type of computing environment now known orlater developed.

Cloud computing is a model of service delivery for enabling convenient,on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computingresources (e.g. networks, network bandwidth, servers, processing,memory, storage, applications, virtual machines, and services) that canbe rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort orinteraction with a provider of the service. This cloud model may includeat least five characteristics, at least three service models, and atleast four deployment models.

Characteristics are as follows:

On-demand self-service: a cloud consumer can unilaterally provisioncomputing capabilities, such as server time and network storage, asneeded automatically without requiring human interaction with theservice's provider.

Broad network access: capabilities are available over a network andaccessed through standard mechanisms that promote use by heterogeneousthin or thick client platforms (e.g., mobile phones, laptops, and PDAs).

Resource pooling: the provider's computing resources are pooled to servemultiple consumers using a multi-tenant model, with different physicaland virtual resources dynamically assigned and reassigned according todemand. There is a sense of location independence in that the consumergenerally has no control or knowledge over the exact location of theprovided resources but may be able to specify location at a higher levelof abstraction (e.g., country, state, or datacenter).

Rapid elasticity: capabilities can be rapidly and elasticallyprovisioned, in some cases automatically, to quickly scale out andrapidly released to quickly scale in. To the consumer, the capabilitiesavailable for provisioning often appear to be unlimited and can bepurchased in any quantity at any time.

Measured service: cloud systems automatically control and optimizeresource use by leveraging a metering capability at some level ofabstraction appropriate to the type of service (e.g., storage,processing, bandwidth, and active user accounts). Resource usage can bemonitored, controlled, and reported providing transparency for both theprovider and consumer of the utilized service.

Service Models are as follows:

Software as a Service (SaaS): the capability provided to the consumer isto use the provider's applications running on a cloud infrastructure.The applications are accessible from various client devices through athin client interface such as a web browser (e.g., web-based e-mail).The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloudinfrastructure including network, servers, operating systems, storage,or even individual application capabilities, with the possible exceptionof limited user-specific application configuration settings.

Platform as a Service (PaaS): the capability provided to the consumer isto deploy onto the cloud infrastructure consumer-created or acquiredapplications created using programming languages and tools supported bythe provider. The consumer does not manage or control the underlyingcloud infrastructure including networks, servers, operating systems, orstorage, but has control over the deployed applications and possiblyapplication hosting environment configurations.

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): the capability provided to theconsumer is to provision processing, storage, networks, and otherfundamental computing resources where the consumer is able to deploy andrun arbitrary software, which can include operating systems andapplications. The consumer does not manage or control the underlyingcloud infrastructure but has control over operating systems, storage,deployed applications, and possibly limited control of select networkingcomponents (e.g., host firewalls).

Deployment Models are as follows:

Private cloud: the cloud infrastructure is operated solely for anorganization. It may be managed by the organization or a third party andmay exist on-premises or off-premises.

Community cloud: the cloud infrastructure is shared by severalorganizations and supports a specific community that has shared concerns(e.g., mission, security requirements, policy, and complianceconsiderations). It may be managed by the organizations or a third partyand may exist on-premises or off-premises.

Public cloud: the cloud infrastructure is made available to the generalpublic or a large industry group and is owned by an organization sellingcloud services.

Hybrid cloud: the cloud infrastructure is a composition of two or moreclouds (private, community, or public) that remain unique entities butare bound together by standardized or proprietary technology thatenables data and application portability (e.g., cloud bursting forload-balancing between clouds).

A cloud computing environment is service oriented with a focus onstatelessness, low coupling, modularity, and semantic interoperability.At the heart of cloud computing is an infrastructure comprising anetwork of interconnected nodes.

Referring now to FIG. 6, illustrative cloud computing environment 600 isdepicted. As shown, cloud computing environment 600 comprises one ormore cloud computing nodes 100 with which local computing devices usedby cloud consumers, such as, for example, personal digital assistant(PDA) or cellular telephone 600A, desktop computer 600B, laptop computer600C, and/or automobile computer system 600N may communicate. Nodes 100may communicate with one another. They may be grouped (not shown)physically or virtually, in one or more networks, such as Private,Community, Public, or Hybrid clouds as described hereinabove, or acombination thereof. This allows cloud computing environment 600 tooffer infrastructure, platforms and/or software as services for which acloud consumer does not need to maintain resources on a local computingdevice. It is understood that the types of computing devices 600A-Nshown in FIG. 6 are intended to be illustrative only and that computingnodes 100 and cloud computing environment 600 can communicate with anytype of computerized device over any type of network and/or networkaddressable connection (e.g., using a web browser).

Referring now to FIG. 7, a set of functional abstraction layers 700provided by cloud computing environment 600 (FIG. 6) is shown. It shouldbe understood in advance that the components, layers, and functionsshown in FIG. 7 are intended to be illustrative only and embodiments ofthe invention are not limited thereto. As depicted, the following layersand corresponding functions are provided:

Hardware and software layer 7010 includes hardware and softwarecomponents. Examples of hardware components include: mainframes; RISC(Reduced Instruction Set Computer) architecture based servers; storagedevices; networks and networking components. In some embodiments,software components include network application server software.

Virtualization layer 7012 provides an abstraction layer from which thefollowing examples of virtual entities may be provided: virtual servers;virtual storage; virtual networks, including virtual private networks;virtual applications and operating systems; and virtual clients.

In one example, management layer 7014 may provide the functionsdescribed below. Resource provisioning provides dynamic procurement ofcomputing resources and other resources that are utilized to performtasks within the cloud computing environment. Metering and Pricingprovide cost tracking as resources are utilized within the cloudcomputing environment, and billing or invoicing for consumption of theseresources. In one example, these resources may comprise applicationsoftware licenses. Security provides identity verification for cloudconsumers and tasks, as well as protection for data and other resources.User portal provides access to the cloud computing environment forconsumers and system administrators. Service level management providescloud computing resource allocation and management such that requiredservice levels are met. Service Level Agreement (SLA) planning andfulfillment provide pre-arrangement for, and procurement of, cloudcomputing resources for which a future requirement is anticipated inaccordance with an SLA. An Enhancement of Massive Data Ingestion bySimilarity Linkage of Documents program may improve document loading oringestion for a question and answer system by determining the similarityof passages through the linkages between the documents in order toimprove performance and accuracy without the need of the user togenerate rules.

Workloads layer 7016 provides examples of functionality for which thecloud computing environment may be utilized. Examples of workloads andfunctions which may be provided from this layer include: mapping andnavigation; software development and lifecycle management; virtualclassroom education delivery; data analytics processing; and transactionprocessing.

The descriptions of the various embodiments of the present inventionhave been presented for purposes of illustration, but are not intendedto be exhaustive or limited to the embodiments disclosed. Manymodifications and variations will be apparent to those of ordinary skillin the art without departing from the scope of the describedembodiments. The terminology used herein was chosen to best explain theprinciples of the embodiments, the practical application or technicalimprovement over technologies found in the marketplace, or to enableothers of ordinary skill in the art to understand the embodimentsdisclosed herein.

1.-9. (canceled)
 10. A computer system for ingesting a plurality ofcontent according to a statistical similarity of at least one portion ofthe ingested plurality of content into an information handling systemcapable of answering questions, wherein the ingested plurality ofcontent is based on a received topic and ingesting the plurality ofcontent comprises ingesting a plurality of documents associated with thereceived topic, the computer system comprising: one or more processors,one or more computer-readable memories, one or more computer-readabletangible storage devices, and program instructions stored on at leastone of the one or more storage devices for execution by at least one ofthe one or more processors via at least one of the one or more memories,wherein the computer system is capable of performing a methodcomprising: determining at least one similarity between each documentwithin the ingested plurality of documents based on a similaritycriteria; applying a statistical model to characterize the determined atleast one similarity between each document within the ingested pluralityof documents; creating at least one pair-wise link between a word, animage, or a plurality of other media for each document within theingested plurality of documents based on the applied statistical model;mapping the created at least one pair-wise link for a first documentwithin the ingested plurality of documents to at least one otherdocument within the ingested plurality of documents based on a contextof the word, the image, or the plurality of other media; and generatinga plurality of rules for ingesting a plurality of additional contentbased on the mapping of the created at least one pair-wise link.
 11. Thecomputer system of claim 10, further comprising: utilizing the generatedplurality of rules for ingesting the plurality of additional content.12. The computer system of claim 10, wherein the ingested plurality ofdocuments comprises unstructured or structured documents.
 13. Thecomputer system of claim 10, wherein the received topic is determinedfrom a question.
 14. The computer system of claim 10, wherein thecreated at least one pair-wise link is a hyperlink between at least twodocuments within the ingested plurality of documents and is createdusing text mining techniques.
 15. The computer system of claim 10,wherein the similarity criteria is a threshold based on at least one ofa plurality of context, a number of times repeated, a confidence, alocation, and an author.
 16. The computer system of claim 10, whereinthe statistical model is selected from a group comprising of at leastone of a variance, a bias, a mean, and a standard deviation.
 17. Thecomputer system of claim 10, wherein the at least one pair-wise linkageis directed or undirected.
 18. The computer system of claim 10, whereinthe ingesting of a plurality of additional content is optimizedaccording to the similarity criteria and the statistical model selectedfrom a group consisting of at least one of a word, a group, a pluralityof NGrams, a sentence, a paragraph, a page, a plurality of Hadoop nodes,and a plurality of clusters.
 19. A computer program product foringesting a plurality of content according to a statistical similarityof at least one portion of the ingested plurality of content into aninformation handling system capable of answering questions, wherein theingested plurality of content is based on a received topic and ingestingthe plurality of content comprises ingesting a plurality of documentsassociated with the received topic, the computer program productcomprising: one or more computer-readable storage devices and programinstructions stored on at least one of the one or more tangible storagedevices, the program instructions executable by a processor, the programinstructions comprising: program instructions to determine at least onesimilarity between each document within the ingested plurality ofdocuments based on a similarity criteria; program instructions to applya statistical model to characterize the determined at least onesimilarity between each document within the ingested plurality ofdocuments; program instructions to create at least one pair-wise linkbetween a word, an image, or a plurality of other media for eachdocument within the ingested plurality of documents based on the appliedstatistical model; program instructions to map the created at least onepair-wise link for a first document within the ingested plurality ofdocuments to at least one other document within the ingested pluralityof documents based on a context of the word, the image, or the pluralityof other media; and program instructions to generate a plurality ofrules for ingesting a plurality of additional content based on themapping of the created at least one pair-wise link.
 20. The computersystem program product of claim 19, further comprising: utilizing thegenerated plurality of rules for ingesting the plurality of additionalcontent.